B&M European Value Retail S.A. (BME.L) reported that its group sales revenue for the third-quarter increased by 9.3% on a constant currency basis. On an actual currency basis, total sales revenue increased by 9.0% to 1.19 billion pounds from the prior year.

B&M UK stores business sales revenue in the 13 week period increased 8.8% year to 957.4 million pounds with LFL sales of 0.3%. Its LFL performance was held back by disappointing sales across the Toys & Seasonal Confectionery categories, which was offset by continued strength and outperformance across our Home Departments.

The company noted that it has seen a positive start to January trading but the outlook for the rest of the quarter could be impacted by any adverse weather conditions which may occur over the remainder of the winter. The company looks forward to 2020 with confidence.

Apple Inc. is taking necessary precautions including Covid-19 testing for those employees returning to work at its headquarters in Silicon Valley, Bloomberg reported citing people familiar with the process. The company, which opened its main Apple Park office in May bringing back some hardware and software engineers, plans the gradual reopening of the building keeping the coronavirus safeguards.

A U.S. appeals court has blocked the sales of Bayer AG's dicamba-based Xtendimax in the United States. The three-judge panel in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled that the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) overstated the protections and substantially understated or ignored the risks related to the use of dicamba-based herbicides.

Tesla Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk has called for a breakup of Amazon after the online retail giant refused to publish an upcoming book about COVID-19. Writer Alex Berenson said on Twitter that Amazon refused to publish his booklet about the coronavirus as it did not comply with the company's guidelines. Berenson is a former New York Times reporter.